Matter of Security
by Riley61
Summary: One-shot: Cameron Morgan hates balls. Especially balls that challenge her skills as a security team leader. After all, anything can happen when the world's most important people are gathered in one place.


Even after six years of them, balls never ceased to amaze me. The elaborate rooms and furnishings intended to make everyone else envious. Every person in the room in elegant gowns and tux's made to project wealth and inspire jealousy. The political moves that are almost too slight for any one not involved to see. The music everyone pretends to like but really doesn't. The way that everyone acts like every other guest is a long lost relative but fail to recognize the most important people, the ones that keep them alive. Balls are just absolutely amazing (that was sarcasm).

So with that take on them, I'm sure by now you're wondering what I was doing at one. Well, remember that group of people no one sees? I'm one of those few.

If someone would have told me twelve years ago that I would be going to balls heading the protection team of the Director of the CIA on home turf, I would have laughed in their face. Twelve years ago I would have thought that right now I'd be in some safe house in Russia or Europe doing something beneficial for my country, definitely not wasting my time at a _ball_.

A ball in which I was confined in a red empire waist gown, forced—if need be—to hike it up past my thighs to get my gun. Oh believe me, I spent a whole three hours before my first ball practicing that, over and over and over, Macey McHenry as my witness.

"Perimeter check," I said calmly into my comms unit (disguised as a diamond necklace. I must say, comms units come in much better quality now than when I was in school) and smiled regally at a haughty woman in a purple dress who walked by me. Age 32, 5'4'', 130 pounds, dark skin, long black hair, brown eyes, from the Indian Embassy.

Outside, four agents jumped at my call and started to take a casual stroll around the Russian Embassy House. "Callahan, did you finish the check on the new waiter?" Of course people have to make my life difficult and go and hire a new waiter without telling me until an hour ago. Luckily, our resident computer geek, Callahan, was _really_ fast at background checks.

A high pitched male voice sounded in my ear, "All clear, Archangel." I have to say that I would much rather have my old Chameleon code name back over my new one, but since I became head of security detail, its Archangel this, Archangel that.

"Good," I sighed into my champagne glass while pretending to take a sip.

"Just think Archangel," Callahan's voice crackled over the system, "Next week you'll be back in Paraguay kicking ass."

I sighed again, "That's all that's keeping me going." I started walking, taking a slow pace and circling clusters of people. No one took a second glance at me except a middle aged man who sent gross looks my way as I walked passed. The music started up again and two dozen couples made there way onto the dance floor. I took notice of their faces and continued my threading through the guests.

"Care to dance?" A handsome man intercepted my path and held out his hand expectantly. Age 29, 6'4'', 160 pounds, Caucasian, buzzed black hair, blue eyes, and my partner.

I gave him an almost imperceptible glare, "I'm sorry sir, but I'm a terrible dancer." Of course, I couldn't just flat out tell him 'Damnit Noah, we're on duty! How many times do I have to tell you I don't like you like that?' even though I _really_ wanted to. For one, his cover name was William, for two, my cover was to be a horrible dancer, and three, we would attract too much attention.

"Well then," he smiled and I knew he hadn't gotten the message, "I'll just have to teach you." I knew if I refused again it would cause too much of a scene.

I smiled graciously and barely avoided slapping him as I held out my gloved hand for him to take. We weaved our way to the dance floor and began a slow waltz. Both to get back on him and to play my part I stomped his foot with my heel, "Oh!" I squeaked, "I'm so sorry, I told you I was a terrible dancer!"

He breathed through his nose in a calming way, "Its fine, I barely felt it." I continued to dance in the most horrid way possible, which just attracted more attention, something I hated. "I'm sorry, I don't think I caught your name?" he said.

I smiled, "Jessica Monrow. And yours?" of course, he already knew that.

"William Hann, pleasure to meet you."

Three minutes and twenty-six seconds later the music stopped for six seconds before transitioning into a foxtrot. No way was I staying around for another dance. "Thank you for a wonderful waltz, William." I bowed my head slightly and made my way off the floor.

"How's it going, Alpha?" I asked my team in general. In quick succession, ten of my eleven person team answered back. "Taurus, report," I commanded the only nonresponsive member. Taurus was stationed on the roof, northwest corner, directly above the ventilating system. Static filled the line as each agent waited anxiously. "Dolly, get up to the roof and see what's going on. Minnie and Ranger, cover her post. Stay alert Alpha, we may have a possible threat here."

I tried again for Taurus to report and when that failed, I turned to Dolly, "You up there Dolly?"

At first silence then, "Taurus is down, bullet to the heart. Get Pharaoh out now!"

Great. I talked as I walked, going around the perimeter in search of any faces that didn't belong. "Wolfman, get the car. Callahan, alert the other heads and tell them about the threat. Chief, get Pharaoh and take him to the garage. Act normally, the infiltrator might already be in, don't spook him. Go!" Sure, we've all trained for this hundreds of times, even had some false alarms, but it's never really happened before.

As soon as the Director (Pharaoh) started to move towards the garage, a dozen other important people also started to flee. Soon, the only people in the room were the guests with no connections and too stupid to tell something was wrong, and the agents in charge of safety. The first thing I did was kick off my heels and unholster my gun. Without any one saying to, all the agents pulled out their badges and flashed them around the room, even though no one could read anyone else's.

Callahan's voice invaded my head again, "Security footage was looped, Archangel. Someone's definitely inside."

I cursed and started to issue more orders, "Callahan check the bugs in the ventilation system I put in earlier." I _knew_ was a reason I went sliding through a foot and a half high, dusty, spider infested steel tube yesterday! "Chief, where's the Pharaoh?"

"In the car and headed to the Temple. Where do you need me?" That was good, Grant (Chief) had the Director in the car, we had some breathing room at least.

Before I could tell him what to do—something I really enjoyed since he was, you know, Grant—Callahan broke back in with, "You're not gonna like this Archangel," immediately, my mind wondered to the most horrible situations (most of which were very real in my profession), "but the audio bugs are picking up a steady beeping. And the visual ones got a green glow. I'm thinking bomb."

"Where?" I shouted, something highly unlike me.

I heard some key board typing and about screamed at him to give me some damn answers when he finally spoke up, "In the shafts right above the ball room. It was the thirty-eighth bug you planted," his voice got shriller and shriller as he went on and under any other circumstance I would have laughed.

I was already running, "Get in here Minnie! I need you incase I can't diffuse the bomb. Chief, get outside to cover her post. Any Alpha team members inside the building see if you can find any trace of the intruder. Everyone outside stay on watch for anyone leaving the building."

I sprinted up the stairs and found the nearest vent, which was on the wall about thirteen feet above the floor. Lucky for me, a thin wooden table was directly underneath it, and as soon as I took the vase off, I could stand on it.

So there I was, my dress hiked up past any decent length, half hanging out of the vent when I heard something shatter below me. I quickly twisted around to see what had happened, half expecting to see that Minnie (our bomb expert) had tripped over the vase I had set in the middle of the hall. Instead, I was greeted with the barrel of a gun.

"Get out of the vent slowly and with your hands in the air!" the gun never waivered from my head as I complied with the gunman. He was dressed in a tux, age 28 (same as me), 6'5'', 150 pounds, Caucasian, shaggy blonde hair, brown eyes, British accent, and government issued Gloc in his hands.

"Who are you?" I asked strongly as I stepped down off the table. I might have appeared calm, but inside I was almost panicking, there was a bomb fifteen feet above our heads, set to explode God knows when, and here I was with a gun pointed at my head.

"MI6," he answered shortly and my eyes surely lit up. He started to approach me but I held out a hand.

"I'm CIA, I have my badge, right here," I slowly reached down to my leg were my badge was magnetically fastened to a calf band. I lifted it up and saw his eyes scan it. "Can I see your ID?"

He holstered his gun and showed me his identification. Alex Rider, why did that sound familiar?

"Minnie, put your gun down, he's MI6!" She had been leaning around a column with her gun trained on Alex since the moment he had forced me to come down.

Alex looked behind him and his eyes registered a moment of shame and embarrassment at not noticing her. I couldn't help the flash of smugness that crossed my face. That always happened when I outdid another agent from a different agency.

"Okay Alex, there's a bomb in the vent above our heads, Minnie is going to go up there and diffuse it. And while she's doing that, we are going to go look for the person that put it there."

This time he grinned in satisfaction, "Already got her. She's outside in the car."

"Minnie, what are you waiting for? For the building to collapse on our heads?" I hated yelling at my team, most of whom I saw only when we were at functions like this, but there was a bomb for god's sake!

Minnie (who's real name was Sara) put away her weapon and hurried over to me. She climbed on the table and in one quick motion jumped into the vent and slide down to the bomb. "Found it!"

"How much time is left?" I called up to her and really, _really_ hoped there was enough.

She hesitated before answering, "Two minutes and twenty three seconds."

"You have enough time?"

Minnie paused again and when she answered she started to panic, "I don't think so, there are too many wires!"

"Damn!" I swore and turned to Alex, "Don't suppose you'd know how to diffuse a bomb?"

He shrugged and jumped onto the table on long legs and then shot himself through the hole. "Alex is coming, don't shoot him!" If there was one thing I knew about my part time team member it was that she was a hair on the trigger happy side.

Minnie crawled out of the vent and jumped, bypassing the table to land in a crouch. Lucky for her she was in a pair of fatigues and not a dress. "He said he can do it," she told me and it wasn't that hard to figure out that she was mad at herself for not being able to do it on her own.

"Do either of you have an extra knife?" Alex's voice echoed through the vent.

I unstrapped my stiletto blade from my thigh holster and yelled, "Incoming!" before hurling it up into the hole. Since there was no crash of it landing on the tin, I assumed he caught it.

I started to pace, we couldn't have much time left and Alex was still up there screwing with the bomb. Just as I opened my mouth to demand a progress report, Alex leaped out of the vent and yelled, "Run! I couldn't get it!"

Minnie, Alex and I sprinted down the staircase and followed my lead to the old servant's corridor on the opposite side of the ballroom from the stairs. "Alpha! Get out, the bomb's gonna blow!" Luckily, I already had this place scoped out, because just as the first part of the shock wave hit us, we crossed the threshold to the outside through a semi-secret doorway on the servant's steps. Minnie and Alex were knocked off their feet while I grabbed onto a tree for support. Old fashioned gas lamp posts were the only thing that made seeing into the darkness possible.

It took us a few seconds to get our bearings back after the invisible force slammed into us. "Alpha!" I yelled all wobbly into the necklace, "Report!" Nine out of the eleven people sounded off. But Minnie was here and Taurus was dead. "And Pharaoh?"

"All clear, Archangel," Wolfman, the driver, informed me.

Taurus; real name Michael Tremin, twenty-nine years old, long term girlfriend Daniela Morris, had two brothers, the funniest guy I'd ever met, rugged features, and according to Macey, a nine and a half on a scale of 1-10 on the hotness meter. I only met him a total of eight times since I'd started security detail, but he had such a good heart.

"Cameron? Cameron!" Alex's hand was waving in front of my face impatiently. I glared at him. "I thought you might like to talk to the infiltrator."

Oh, I was going to do so much more than talk. Minnie must have seen the glint in my eyes because she grinned and nodded at me. Alex led the way to the front of the mansion and weaved through news vans, police cars, black Suburbans, and blue Sedans. All the way we carefully avoided all cameras and recorders, something I was always trained to do. He finally stopped at a black hummer hidden behind some shrubbery. He tapped on the driver's side window and it was instantly rolled down.

A man was revealed, brown hair, blue eyes, a goatee, and around thirty years old. "Who're they?" he nodded his head toward Minnie and me.

I flashed my badge, "CIA."

The man grimaced and looked back to Alex, "What do they want?"

Alex ignored the man and opened the back door to show a figure in all black with a hood over their head, bound to the seat. Alex reached up and ripped the hood off, and my eyes nearly bugged out of my head.

"No freaking way," I breathed, "Bex?"

She looked up at me and shook her hair out of her face, then squinted against the light coming from all the cop cars and news vans, "Bloody hell! Cammie?" Then Bex started to laugh.

"Wait, you know her?" Alex and Minnie asked at the same time.

I nodded and turned my focus back to my one-time best friend. After graduation from Gallagher, England had made her come back to join one of their agencies. "What are you doing here? Why do they think you planted the bomb?"

She sighed and her deep brown eyes went serious, "I did Cammie, but listen. The bomb was just a shock wave, no one would have gotten more than a bump on the head from falling. It was just a distraction."

I looked at her with what I'm sure were very disappointed eyes, "I can't believe you Bex, I can't believe you crossed to their side!" Betrayal, more than anything else I felt betrayal.

Bex just looked at me like I'd lost my mind, "Listen to you Cammie, you're almost as bad as that lot, and I work with them," she gestured with her chin to Alex and the driver, who listened to our conversation in confusion. "MI6 sent me here. The bomb was a distraction so I could get in and get out without anyone even looking for me because they'd all be pre-occupied with the bomb. But damn, if I knew you would be here I would have come more prepared."

I looked Bex in the eyes and clenched my teeth, "Why are you here?"

Bex looked back up at me in defiance, "We intercepted some satellite feed a few days ago and overheard an assassination plot. Your man, Michael Tremin? He was a deep cover infiltrator sent from SCORPIA to snipe out the Russian Ambassador along with any and all others he could kill and still get out. They sent me because I've been in Africa for the last four years and no one knew I worked for MI6. And it worked great until, you know, MY OWN TEAM ARRESTED ME!" she shouted the last part at her coworkers and I laughed.

I turned to face Alex who looked so pale I thought he was going to be sick, "put in a call to your director and see if her story fits." While I'm sure it would, something bothered me about Bex. Maybe it was just that I hadn't seen her in over ten years. When I was sure Alex was making the call I faced Minnie, "Get Ranger and go to the Temple with the Pharaoh, we're staying with him tonight. I'll send the next shift in at midnight, okay? Let the rest of the the team know they can leave." She nodded and with one last curious look at Bex started to jog to Ranger's post.

Bex whistled appreciatively, "Wow Cam, heading your own team?"

I nodded, "Just for these things though. The rest of the time I'm in the field."

She only nodded and looked at the ground for a minute before looking back up at me, "I'm sorry Cam."

"For what?" even though I already knew.

"For not calling or emailing or visiting," her accent got thicker as she went on.

I crossed my arms, "I understand, you weren't given much of a choice." Her and her parents had fought it every step of the way when MI6 called her back to Britain.

Bex shook her head, "But it's not like I was in prison, I could have made an effort."

"It's _okay_ Bex, really. What's done is done."

She was about to argue some more when Alex hung up, looking even worse. He brushed passed me and got in Bex's face, "What do you know about SCORPIA?" his tone made me uneasy.

She shrugged, "Not much, just that they're big-time bad-ass. The leaders of organized crime. They were laying low for a while, but now they're back."

Alex breathed out sharply and straightened, turning around to rub his temples as he paced.

"And that you and them have a long and unhappy history together," Bex added and Alex spun around. "That's why they picked me over you, Jones was worried your emotions would get in the way." Alex's eyes almost glowed with anger.

"Someone want to fill me in?" I huffed. I really hated being uninformed.

"Untie her, her story checks out," Alex's partner said offhandedly and went off to smoke a cigarette. Alex cut her bonds with my stiletto and tossed it back to me. Bex stepped out of the van and stretched. She held out her hand and Alex placed her Sig Saur in it, she holstered it and looked pointedly at Alex.

He sighed and rubbed his eyes, "It's just like your friend said, long history, lots of scars." I could sympathize. I really could. Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night covered in sweat because of nightmares of the Circle of Cavan. It happened way more frequently than I'd ever like to admit. If Alex's experience was anything like mine, I could understand his reluctance to talk.

I hiked up my skirt and put my knife back in its holster. I held out my hand and approached Alex. "Thank you for helping us." We shook hands, I looked back at Bex. "Don't wait so long to talk, call me. And I'll even give you Grant's number," I grinned and walked back towards the crowd, getting my inner pavement artist ready.

A hand grabbed my arm and I dropped into a fighting stance on the other side of the shrubs. It was Alex, he looked nervous. "Uhh, I was thinking that maybe," he cleared his throat and I resisted a smile, knowing full well where this was headed, "we could get together. I could tell you about SCORPIA."

The last part I didn't expect. I blinked in mild surprise and nodded, "Sure, my number's 450-776-7502." If he was any self-respecting spy he would have it memorized as I spoke it.

He smiled, "See you around then, Cameron."

"It's Cammie," I corrected and glided into the shadows.


End file.
